• Venus shines at it brightest as the morning star for about a week or so during the middle part of July 2012. Astronomers call this a greatest brilliancy for Venus. This brilliant planet shines close to another dazzling planet, Jupiter, on these July 2012 mornings, and it'll easy be to tell which world is Venus and which is Jupiter. Venus is by far the brighter of the two. Venus ranks as the third-brightest celestial object in all the heavens and Jupiter the fourth-brightest, respectively, after the sun and moon.
• Tomorrow (July 12) marks a special

day on the calendar for earthly observations of Venus. It's the day on which Venus reaches what astronomers call its greatest illuminated extent in Earth's sky. This event marks the moment when the visible fraction of Venus' day side - the part we on Earth can see - covers the greatest area of our sky. It's the reason Venus is so bright now.
• What does it mean? Only that Venus is exceedingly bright now. It's dazzling in our predawn and dawn sky, near Jupiter. If you look, you'll find the planet looming low in the east. It's almost eerie brilliant before sunrise.
• Remember, Venus orbits one step closer to the sun than we do. This means two things. First, the disk of Venus (revealed by telescopes) is not always the same size in our sky. When Venus is far across the solar system from us - on the far side of its orbit - its disk looks relatively small from Earth. But around the time Venus passes between us and the sun - as it did on June 6, 2012 - the disk of Venus is relatively large in our sky. (Diagram on right courtesy of Wikipedia. Phases of Venus copyright

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